As an elementary schooler, I was pretty much always the tomboy/dork. I was into running, I had a bug collection, and my very best friend was the pudgy little boy that none of the "popular kids" talked to. Not that I cared, he was nice to me, and I myself was pretty weird. We looked out for each other. When I left that elementary school after I finished up 5th grade, it was decided by my parents that we would be moving to Gainesville due to a job offer for my dad. I was indifferent about it because I knew that I would be switching schools anyways. But I had no idea what I was in for when I would be entering the world of middle school.

When I got there on my first day, I thought that I was pretty smart. After all, I had been a safty patrol the year before (which was a big deal at the school I went to). As the day progressed however, I was beginning to feel stupider and stupider; I didn’t know what any of these kids were talking about. They were using all kinds of words that I had only heard from my granddad, and they were talking about things that, let’s just say, they didn’t go over in sex-ed. Lucky for me, I made a friend in band that would teach me everything I would need to know to get by. She made me a list of rules that would help my not get crushed by the public school system and its students:

Rule number 1: You are not supposed to care about school work. And if you do, pretend that you don’t; cool kids don't care about school, it’s weird.

Rule number 2: You must always have a crush on someone or have a boyfriend; otherwise people will think that you're weird.

Rule number 3: Get rid of your bug collection, because that’s weird.

Rule number 4: Don't talk about your parent; that’s weird.

Rule number 5: Know what all drugs are and what they look like, so when people talk about them you can contribute to the conversation.

Rule number 6: Go to Holister and buy all your clothes from there. Actually it doesn’t matter where you buy them, but make sure all your clothes say Holister, because that’s what the cool kids wear.

Rule number 7: If a teacher asks a question to the class, DO NOT raise your hand. This would imply that you A) know the answer, which in uncool, and B) that you care, which is weird.

Although some of these rules helped me to be socialy acceptable, like the bug collection rule, others didn’t make sence and were difficult for me to follow. The Holister thing made absolutely no sense. What did it matter if my t shirt had a flower on it, and her shirt had a flower and the word Holister on it? I blatently disregarded this rule, except for the one shirt that I went and got with heather. The no hand raising rule was the most difficult, because I was always used to being excited when I knew the answer to a question a teacher asked. Now it was a no-no?

Now I’m so glad that middle school is over. The reason I couldn’t pick one specific awkward event for this assignment is because the whole middle school experience was awkward. Every single day was weird and nothing ever made sense. But now I can look back in that set of rules and laugh at them, because now I think they’re weird.